Border traffic up

Thupeyo Muleya Beitbridge BureauBORDER authorities in Beitbridge have come up with a raft of measures to deal with the anticipated surge in both human and vehicle traffic during the Easter holidays.

The assistant regional immigration officer-in-charge of Beitbridge, Mr Notius Tarisai, told The Herald that they had deployed adequately and were ready to roll.

“We have come up with a raft of measures to ensure the smooth flow of traffic. We have a staff complement of 80 immigration officers which is adequate to deal with an increase in the volume of both human and vehicular traffic.

“Traffic has since been separated into buses, returning residents, visitors, transit, motorist and commercial. Further, we are going to be opening up more clearing points outside the main immigration hall,” he said.

Mr Tarisai said they had since aligned operations with their South African counterparts with effect from March 18 to 30.

He said they were also assured of total support from Zimbabwe Revenue Authority, the police and Zimbabwe National Roads Administration with regards to the efficient clearance of traffic.

“Those travelling in buses will be assisted through the tagging system (cleared on first come first served basis),” he said.

Mr Tarisai said they will employ most of the clearance systems which proved to be effective during the festive season in December last year.

An official from Zimra revealed that they had received an extra 75 workers from less busy stations. Zimra has 307 employees at Beitbridge and requires 526 to operate at full strength.